Getting a Second Opinion
by Jest'lyn Tal
Summary: Doctor Bertrin hadn't seemed too concerned as he encouraged the Knight to dig in tainted soil. Perhaps another doctor might have recommended a little more caution...


**Standard Disclaimers**: I own nothing of Star Wars the Old Republic nor it's characters. I make no profit from this.  
**Author's Note**: This **may contain spoilers** for the Jedi Knight in SWTOR - so beware. It takes place on Balmorra before you pick up another party member...Given the people met and the nature of one of the quests - I half expected this scene to be in the game. When it wasn't, well... here you go!

* * *

It took her a moment to translate the various beeps and whistles of the droid by her side into Standard. Given the fact that conversations with the T7 were not by any means infrequent (though admittedly the spunky little droid accompanied her less and less these days) that delay said something about her state of mind. She was having a hard time focusing and her thoughts were scattered.

"Sorry," she smiled to the droid as she took a deep, clearing breath. "What about the cantina?"

"Cantina = other way. Jedi = ok?"

The Knight blinked and looked at the corridor more closely. T7 was right; she'd been heading in the wrong direction. "Oh!" she winced and shook her head. The pervasive haze she felt wasn't lessened by the action. "So it is. I guess I'm just preoccupied. But, why don't you head back to the ship? The cantina is likely to be boring for you, after all."

The droid's answering woots were somewhat uncertain.

"No, really," the Knight insisted, "I'll follow you soon, I promise."

The droid reluctantly but obediently began to roll away. The Knight watched for a moment and then re-orientated herself in the context of the small bunker. The cantina wasn't far away in the grand scheme of things and it was certainly much closer than the ship. Since her head was pounding and her muscles were competing to see which ones could get the closest to spasming without crossing the line, the distance mattered.

She refused to be too concerned. The doctor had mentioned there might be a few side effects to getting the tainted soil samples. They shouldn't last long and she'd wait them out in the comfort of a plushy chair.

This thought comforted her all the way up until she found a seat in the small, sparse cantina. She sighed leaning back into it while doing her best to ignore the scent of corellian ale soaked into the fabric. The music, oddly enough, didn't seem to hurt her head and she was grateful for that. Of course, it didn't help either but one couldn't have everything.

In this space of relative calm, she closed her eyes and allowed her thoughts to drift. She'd been rather focused for the last few weeks, concerned and perhaps even a little obsessed with the need to keep busy.

Balmorra. Another new world, another battle to fight. Part of her wasn't sure whether she liked the planet or not. She'd been to more than a few warzones lately, so that part of it wasn't as much of a turn off as it should have been. It was pretty enough, even beneath the scarring. Of course, it had nothing on the vistas of Aldaraan, but …

Somehow, Aldaraan could never be beautiful to her. Not anymore.

…No death. Just the Force.

She liked to think that Master Din had been trying to guide her, even through those last moments. However, the comforting litany spoken in his familiar tone had done little to soften the image of a lightsaber protruding from his back.

She could promise to honor his legacy. She could do her best to live up to the trust he'd shown her by taking her on as padawan. However, the truth was that neither of these things really lessened the grief of his murder or the space where his presence had been.

He was gone. Her mentor, her master, the closest thing to a father she'd ever have …

Her eyes pricked behind her lids, the heat of impending tears unaccountably painful.

Somehow, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd failed him. If only she'd finished with the Death Mark sooner, she could have been with him. She could have saved him.

Instead, she'd just sat there like a fool and watched…

Not even the vision of him that she'd been gifted with was enough to pull the ache from that thought. She shook her head and licked her dry lips. She would accept the grief eventually, she knew. No death. Just the Force. She believed that.

What she didn't know was whether she'd ever get rid of this ruthless streak that her mourning had inspired.

She was not naturally a vindictive person. She honestly believed in the sanctity of life and had always regretted when circumstances forced her to take one. Except….

She'd killed every man on Darth Angral's ship and she'd done so quite deliberately, without even the possibility of mercy crossing her mind.

Any empathy that might have welled up in her heart had died stillborn in the wake of the simple fact that they'd all been there. Every single one of them was an accomplice in the death of her master and every single one of them would die for it in return.

She was grimly aware that Master Din probably wouldn't have approved.

She was grimly aware that she would do it all again without second thought.

Her stomach rolled and she raised a hand to her temple, massaging there. She should meditate. Such … thoughts were not safe. The Dark Side was filled with good people who had let that sort of view pull them astray. She could not risk becoming that which she hated…

"Well, look at this," the voice was familiar if not instantly recognizable, "Imagine meeting you here."

She looked up at the smiling face of the resistance doctor she'd met earlier in the week - Doc. Standing with a drink in his hand, the man was somewhat cleaned up from when they'd last met. No longer was his face streaked with dirt or his clothing dotted with other people's blood. He seemed more relaxed too. It suited him.

"Hello, Doc," she returned warmly. She was a Jedi and usually she felt quite uncomfortable around men who didn't seem to take that into account as they tried to flirt with her. For some reason, however, Doc's efforts felt different. Perhaps because she believed that his provocative comments had been more about providing a distraction from the circumstances than actual lust. "Taking a break from your patients?"

He moved to sit down by her without either invitation or hesitation. "Well, most of them have moved on to better locations - hospitals back from the frontlines. Now I've just got the metaphorical scraped knees to deal with. A gut-shot here, burned limbs there. It's practically a vacation."

"That's good to hear," she responded. She shivered and fought the urge to pull her cloak closer. "Maybe someday you'll only have to deal with real scrapped knees and stubbed toes."

"Maybe," Doc allowed, "But that'd be my cue to move on. Warzones aren't exactly peaceful, but they're where ol' Doc belongs. Much like yourself, I'm guessing."

She nodded for a moment before the meaning of the words sunk in, "Yes," she agreed more firmly. "Of course there are some knights, some Jedi, that can dedicate themselves to more scholarly work or actual diplomacy. I'm afraid that I'm not one of them."

"Lucky for me," Doc grinned at her. "I would never have met you if you were behind a desk."

He casually put his arm on the back of the couch, fingers hovering just above her shoulder. If there was significance to the gesture, she missed it in favor of closing her eyes for a few minutes. The light from the holographic dancers was driving spikes into her brain and she just needed a moment to block it out. When she finally opened them and looked at Doc again, she found his dark eyes waiting for her. There was an expectant look on his face, coupled with cautious concern. She couldn't remember hearing anything, but he must have said something or asked her a question?

"Sorry," she offered an apologetic smile. "It's been a long day and I guess I'm more tired than I thought." She moved to stand up and the effort it took to get her sand-filled body to move was nearly overwhelming. "I really should get back to the ship."

Doc stood as well. He reached forward as if to grab her elbow, but stopped himself just in time. "Really? Were you outnumbered or are you just over-worked?"

"Neither," she admitted, "Apparently, I can fight off colliquid hoards but its manual labor that's my real nemesis…" Her vision was pulsing in time with her heartbeat and her stomach rolled in newfound nausea.

Back to the ship. Back to the ship so she wouldn't throw up on anyone's shoes…

"It appears to have worked you over pretty well," Doc's tone was devoid of any trace of flirtation or humor. He reached to the pack on his belt where, the Knight suspected, he kept that medical scanner of his. "You look like hell."

"…really? Thought I was gorgeous." She was used to teasing her friends and without thinking about it she found herself extending that familiarity to him. It was meant to reassure him, to allow him to slip back into the persona of just another cantina patron going about his day and her to that of an acquaintance heading out. "…fine…" she heard herself saying. "I'm fine."

Doc's response was a muffled din in her ears, entirely too frail to keep her conscious as the world twisted around her, this time into darkness.

* * *

Aldaraanian nectar. The scent that C2N2 dispersed into the atmosphere of her ship was faint but ever so slightly cloying. She didn't like it at the best of times and it roused her from unconsciousness now.

The flood of bile to her tongue also helped. She jolted up, lurching for the side of her bed.

"Hold on, now," the hand that magically produced a bucket in front of her and the one that rested supportively against her back both belonged to the same man. "You're okay."

The Knight's response was non-verbal and included a great deal of heaving - a very eloquent way for her to beg to differ with his assessment. By the time she'd emptied out most of the contents of her stomach she was more than aware of her surroundings. She was in her quarters on her ship, though how she got there was at least partially a mystery.

"Think you are done?" Doc asked.

She nodded cautiously and watched him settle the bucket down out of sight.

"Good. Considering how long it took you to throw all of that up, I think that might be the last of it," he didn't sound cheerful, exactly, but it was close.

She frowned as she lay back down and then decided to approach this odd situation logically. She was aboard her ship, apparently sick, and being tended to by a resistance surgeon with some very distinct stress-related coping mechanisms. "What happened?"

"You passed out in the cantina," Doc responded. He smiled, "Fell right into my waiting arms, in fact. Normally I encourage that sort of behavior, but next time I think there should be candlelight and dinner first."

She struggled to find a proper retort and failed. She had to settle for eye-narrowing and a flat look.

Doc did not appear impressed. He laughed a breath and took a seat on the edge of her bed. "Does digging around in poison ring a bell, Jedi?"

The Knight tested the waters of her equilibrium by shaking her head very gently, "That can't be it. The doctor said it would only have side-effects if I spent too long in the fields. I was very quick."

Doc raised a skeptical brow, "This would be the "doctor" that wanted you to bring back soil samples?" His contempt was obvious.

The Knight nodded warily.

"The one whose homeworld rested on you bringing them back?" Doc prompted. He gestured briefly, "The one may have thought that finding an antidote would be worth sending you into a cloud that even environmental suits had issues with?"

"I see your point," she said reluctantly. Doc handed her a glass of water from the side table and she took a slow drink. Concentrating on the cool liquid sliding down her throat helped her avoid the potential implications of what she was just now realizing. She'd been poisoned. She'd been poisoned with something that could not be drawn out of the land by an antidote…

Unbidden, her eyes flicked up to Doc as if she could read how bad the situation was in his expression. She couldn't. His mask of light humor and easy-going friendliness was too good, too practiced. Her questions and anxiety must have shown.

"I'm not the only lucky one in this relationship," Doc crossed his arms over his chest, "I don't imagine there is anyone else on this whole planet who could have figured out how to purge that sludge from your system." He cocked his head to the side in evaluation and then added, grudgingly, "Of course, you've got a hell of a constitution working for you, too."

"Meaning?" Impatience stole her usual politeness.

"Meaning there's a brew of antidotes, boosters, and kolto derivatives that I've left with your droid. Make sure you take a dose tonight and tomorrow morning and you'll be back breaking hearts and heads by noon."

She exhaled a breath, releasing tension she hadn't been completely aware of. There was too much to do, she had too far to go, to have something like this interfere.

Doc tapped her wrist to get her attention, "Hey," he said, "I appreciate the whole helping out thing, but you need to be more careful in the future. I won't always be here to mop your brow and whisper sweet nothings into your hair when you get sick."

Her face felt hot. She was fairly sure she was blushing. "I was being careful. I was also trying to help out people who had no way of helping themselves." She raised her chin slightly, "Something I'm pretty sure you know a bit about, too."

"Fair point," Doc said, eyeing her, "But I also know that, medically speaking, it's a lot harder to give that help if you get yourself killed." He shrugged, "But who am I? Just the genius doctor who kept you from slipping off to the great beyond."

She exhaled a breath and relented, even if she was slightly irritated with the would-be scolding. He did have a point. She'd been too trusting. "I know. I'll try to be more cautious in the future."

He stood up, hands clapping briefly against his knees as he did so. "Good! Well, now that's done, I'd better be going before your padawan makes good on her threat to kick me out." He lowered his voice to mock whisper, "I don't think she likes me."

Startled, she laughed. "She did call you a walking hormone," she admitted, then added in humor that had become all too rare since Aldaraan, "But that might have been a compliment."

Doc headed for the door, amusement clear, "Somehow I doubt that. Not everyone is as kind or understanding as you are, gorgeous."

"Ah, but some people are, Doc," she told him, not bothering to conceal the extra layer of meaning. "And I am very grateful for it. Thank you."

He keyed the door open and looked over his shoulder at her. Something shifted beneath his practiced smile but she couldn't pinpoint what it was.

"Finish the water," he told her and though his smile did not widen, it seemed more honest somehow.

He left and she did as he'd instructed before slipping off into sleep.


End file.
